Autism In Fly Away

Fly Away starring Beth Broderick, Ashley Rickards, Greg Germann and J.R. Bourne was written and directed by Janet Grillo. This low budget film was released in cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Washington during Autism Awareness month in April of 2011. This film is eye opening for people who have never encountered Autism, or who have never heard of Autism. The plot of this movie covers the hardships and obstacles that come with rising a child with Autism and how things get even harder as they grow up. Making tough decisions about their future, and hoping it is the right thing.

The movie begins with Jeanne (Beth Broderick) lying in bed as she hears Mandy (Ashley Rickards) screaming in her bed, Mandy has Autism and Jeanne didn’t jump

Mandy was seen as a violent child who constantly had meltdowns and destroyed property. She not only destroyed property, she also hit her mother and left bruises and bit her father. In school, she would throw chairs and desks and try to hurt other children. This would make a person who has never encountered Autism fear being around an Autistic person. Another reason the disability was viewed in a negative light would be that the movie only showed Mandy doing two things. Eating cereal and watching old cartoons. This is negative because people with Autism are so much more capable of doing many things. This stereotype of Autistic people not being able to do things that typical people do like dress themselves, take bathes, draw pictures was felt in this movie. Many Autistic people have incredible skills, like in math, music, computers, reading, the list can go on and on. In this film Mandy liked cereal, cartoons and airplanes and that was it. The Autistic mind is not a simple thing, but in this movie, it was portrayed as if it

The depiction also of people and their reactions to Autism was spot on. When Mandy was in the ice cream shop she was incredibly excited and was talking loudly and jumping around. A customer told her mother that if she couldn’t control her than she didn’t need to be taken out in public. People often tell parents of Autistic children and adults how to raise their child or tell them they aren’t fit to be in public and it’s such an unfair thing, but it is real life. When Jeanne promised her daughter ice cream after school but then told her she needed to wait until after dinner threw her into a violent fit. People with Autism are very literal and if it goes off track of what they expect to happen that can set off a meltdown, just like shown in the movie. They also showed Mandy only wanting to eat cereal, that is very realistic of someone with Autism. Many people on the spectrum have problems with textures or trying new things so that was very accurate also. Mandy was also fixated on airplanes, she knew everything there was to know about airplanes and repeated it to anyone that would listen, which is also a true characteristic of a person on the